I’m not going to restart writing previews for games, but today I will kill time between now and kick off with one or two random things that’s catching my attention with a ‘live thread’ feel.  I’ll chuck in any relevant match news if and when it surfaces and probably some thoughts during the game as it may well be a case of listening to the free commentary on the radio.

Firstly, I noticed that the countdown timer in the sidebar was incorrectly counting down to tomorrow instead of today. Apologies if you also noticed that, it was my error and I’ve taken myself outside for a good flogging. If it makes you feel any better, until yesterday I was under the impression that the match was on Thursday for some reason.

FIFA 10

I was messing around with Google’s new look search earlier, or a sneak peak anyway, and I stumbled on this forum post for FIFA 10 online:-

You wont notice this until you get to play people with high rankings.

Almost 95% of top 100 use Aston Villa and the main reason they use them is very simple to exploit Fifa. They play with 7 man back and 3 upfront.

Agbanlahor (spelled wrong) Young and Carew upfront. With pass creation set to 100 and agression to 100 and pressure to 20. Basically they become a team you can’t stop when they attack but can’t penetrate when you’re on the attack. with 7 defenders on you and those amazingly 3 strikers upfront.

Agg is the fastest player on the game and Young is the fastest dribbler on the game alongside messi and Carew is strong as a tree , fast, and has the finishing of David Villa.

Even if you pick 1 star team they’ll go aston villa. Pick 5 star team they still go Aston villa.

Avoid them at all cost people that abuse Aston villa like this.

I must confess that I haven’t played FIFA for some time and I still own a PS2 which is just gathering dust, so I couldn’t possibly comment on whether this is true or not. It certainly made me laugh though. I wonder whether MON has ever considered employing a 7-3 formation? He’s probably already got the aggression set close to 100 and the pressure on 20, it’s the pass creation setting that he needs to look at!

Jermaine Pennant

Apparently NotW were reporting at the weekend that Aston Villa are interested in Jermaine Pennant for January. I’m calling shenanigans, there’s no credibility in claiming MON is interested in players we don’t need to add “further competition for places in the wide positions” when he’s very limited in his squad utilization.

Formation

Regular readers will know that I’m fairly neutral in any debate about formation and that I’d echo MON’s sentiment that it’s more about the players and roles than recognised formations. I’m perfectly willing to concede that in certain situations there’s a case to be made for Villa employing 5 midfielders when MON’s preferred 4, in fact I generally lean that way myself, but I won’t buy any argument that 4-5-1 wins games and 4-4-2 loses them.

We’ve played 4-4-2 enough this season to put that tired argument to bed, but Jonathan Wilson’s article on formations and symmetry naturally resonated with me.

I would totally agree that the English mindset has become stuck in its definitions of roles and, by extension, the formation the players line up in. The continental and South American perspective has a broader vocabulary to describe what the players are doing on the pitch and are able to have a more sophisticated understanding of the nuances effecting strategy and tactics.

I would certainly recommend setting some time aside to read it. As Villa fans, you will certainly be rewarded with a choice assessment of our own Emile Heskey in the closing sentences. Trust me.

McGregor Statue

This is definitely worthy of its own post, but it kept getting bumped down the list. The club and Supporters’ Trust unveiled the fruit of labours at the weekend when the William McGregor statue was finally installed. This was an excellent project and congratulations and thanks should be extended to everyone involved.

BBC News published a nice article and the OS has a fantastic gallery of pictures. I think it will become a very warmly regarded feature at Villa Park, just one more thing to make us fans proud of the club we support.

Team News

Starting XI, which I imagine will line up something like this…

Subs: Friedel, Delfouneso, Delph, Reo-Coker, Beye, Gardner, Clark.

The second half is just underway with the score currently 1-2. There was an early OG from Petrov at a corner, but Villa have come back in fine form with goals from Heskey and what sounds like a belter from James Milner.

Full time – Portsmouth 2 Aston Villa 4!! We’re in the semis!! Report here.